In the previous article we saw how to validate the problem we had detected in the market. That is, how we verified that the problem we had found (the lack in the market) really exists, that there are people who want it solved and that they are willing to pay for it.

If we have reached this point, it is that the conclusions we have drawn invite us to go ahead with our idea, either respecting its original form or making adjustments that we have seen that we should make.

And now what? Well, now it's time to create our Product MMinimum Viable (PMV).

What is a Minimum Viable Product or MVP?

To put it very simply, we can say that the PMV is a minimalist version of our product or service that aims to validate that it solves a problem. In other words, before launching into the development of the final version of our product, we are going to create a basic version that allows us to validate that we are on the right track and learn about our solution, our potential customers and the market.

Is a PMV cheap? I get asked this question a lot. A PMV is a much cheaper version than the final product, without a doubt. However, depending on what we want to develop, the costs may be different. For example, it is not the same to create a PMV of an e-commerce, than one of a new type of engine for cars, for example. The former can cost hundreds or thousands of euros, the latter can cost millions... and, in both cases, they would be valid LMPs.

The idea is to develop the minimum to validate that our solution really works. solve that which we intended.

I have already created my PMV, now what?

The next step would be to let those customers that we have detected as prototypical customers access our VMP and test it (if it is interactive). To do this we will let them see it in an interview. We are going to structure the solution interviews under AIDA. What is AIDA? If you know anything about marketing you might be familiar with it. It is an acronym that stands for “Atention, Interest, Deseo, Action”.

Let's take a quick look at each of these words:

• AWe have to capture the attention of the potential customer with our unique value proposition, that commercial phrase that defined our product and its advantages...
• Interest: we will use the PMV to generate interest in our product or service.
• Deseo: this is pure psychology. Let's try to push the potential customer towards a solid commitment to our product, generating a desire in him. Then we will see how.
• Action: we will obtain a verbal or written commitment or an advance payment.

A word of caution: although it may not seem like it, this is not a sales exercise, but a learning exercise. Let's save our sales skills for another time. Right now we just want to validate our solution, there will be time to sell later.

Don't be fooled by the point Action AIDA, which is not to get a sale, but to validate the price and interest of our product.

Just like when we were validating the problem, we are going to talk directly to people who, we understand, would be similar profiles to our potential customers. So we go back to the interviews.

Validating the solution

Every interview, as we have already seen, must have a structured script, in order to allow us to address those aspects that are transcendental for our business, as well as to ensure that there is homogeneity in the process and, therefore, when we draw conclusions, these will not be adulterated by a poorly structured script. praxis.

The script we could follow (based on Lean Startup), would have the following structure:

Welcome

Let's dedicate a couple of minutes to the welcome. Here we will seek not only to thank the interviewee for his or her time, but also to introduce him or her to the purpose of the interview.

Demographic information

We must obtain demographic data from our interviewees. This is important because it will later help us to group responses according to patterns and draw conclusions about our final prototypical customer.

What information to ask for? Well, the same information we already asked for in the validation of the problem (previous article).

We tell the story of our problem

As in the problem validation interview, we focus on the problems that we had detected, so that the interviewee has the full context.

The customer tests our PMV

This is the most important part of the interview. We have to take each of the detected problems and explain how we solve them in PMV. For each problem solved, we should ask the interviewee if he/she has any questions.

Here is a detail: if we are not evaluating (at least not yet) the usability of the VMP, we can manage the VMP ourselves. Otherwise, we will let the user use it himself.

When we have finished showing how we have solved each problem, we should ask several questions:

• Which part of this demonstration did you find most interesting?
• What functions/features do you consider essential?
• What do you miss in this solution?

Let's put prices to the test

This part is one of the most important parts of the interview. We will take the opportunity to validate our pricing, not to make a sale, but to learn how users respond to our ROI plan.

If your product is free and the return will come from ways that do not involve charging the user, this part of the interview will be merely informative.

We are going to test the price, and we can do this in two ways:

• The passive way, i.e. without forcing friction in customer acquisition.
• The reactive way, i.e. where we will purposely create friction with the customer to assess his real interest and how much he is willing to pay.

Passive form

The passive way consists of telling them about our pricing plan (the simpler the better, please), in which we justify it by recalling how our solution solves their problem. An example based on the case of a Dropbox-like platform could be the following:

“Well, let's talk about pricing. Although we have not yet finished the product, we have to verify whether or not it is worth developing it further.

We have in mind a monthly subscription of 9 euros, would you be interested in purchasing this service for this price considering that you could share files online with no space limit and in a simple way, as you have seen in our demo?”

If the customer says no, we politely ask him, even then, how much he would be willing to pay for it, or even if he would be willing to pay anything at all.

Reactive form

The reactive way consists of asking how much the customer would pay and then defending our price (in general terms, our price is usually higher than the price the customer says he wants to pay). Example:

“Well, let's talk about pricing. Although we have not yet finished the product, we have to verify whether or not it is worth developing it further.

How much would you be willing to pay monthly for this service?”

At this point the potential customer will tell us how much he would pay. It's time for us to defend our price and invite him to try it with a money-back guarantee:

“The truth is that we were thinking more along the lines of a monthly fee of 9 euros. Since the product is in a testing phase, we would like to choose 20 customers among our interviewees to work side by side and improve our solution. Of course, these 20 customers would have the option of a 100% refund of the subscription in case they are not satisfied during the first month. You have told us about the inconvenience of not being able to share large files. The 9 euros per month would be a much lower cost than the time you normally spend troubleshooting this problem.”

If he responds that he is interested, we already know that the price could be a good fit. If he decides to decline, we would ask him if he would be willing to try it at another price.

Farewell

The interview comes to an end. It is time to do three things:

1. Saying thank you.
2. Ask permission to send you future versions of the product and repeat the interview.
3. Try to capture more potential clients among the interviewee's acquaintances/relatives.

Time to document

Time must be devoted to compiling the information obtained. When we have enough interviews, we will have to contrast information and draw conclusions. The idea is to learn about the solution and the business model proposed.

What's next?

Well, you have to repeat this process over and over again. As you learn, you will have to shape your product (remember the product definition in the previous article in this series), and that will lead you to iterate over and over again. Your PMV will evolve and it will not always be customer interviews that will allow you to learn, because if your business starts to work, you will already have real customers to work with. What is certain is that this cycle of product or service improvement must not stop. If we stop, we will lose the battle, the competition is tough.

Conclusions

Validating a business idea and its entire economic and productive model is not so complex, but it is important to know how to do it well. On the one hand, as we have seen in these two articles, we have to validate the problem (does it really exist? are there people who want to pay for us to solve it?), and, on the other hand, we have to validate the solution (does it work as we thought it would? does it solve the problem?). The second part is infinite. As long as your product or service exists, you will have to improve it repeatedly, adjusting to your customers, the market and the social context.